St Peter's Hospital for Stone London

Helped by an anonymous donation

Extract from the initial appeal for the founding of a hospital for the stone, 12 March 1860

“there are in London six charitable Institutions for Idiots and Lunatics, nine for Lying-In Women, four for Women and Children, seven for Diseases of the Eye, two for Diseases of the Ear, four for Diseases of the Chest, two for Diseases of the Skin, five for Deformities, one for Cancer, one for Fistula, one for Fever, one Lock Hospital, and three Vaccine Institutions, yet there is no Hospital specially appropriated to the treatment of Stone"

The Hospital for the Stone was founded in 1860, initially at 42 Great Marylebone Street, London. In 1863, it moved to 54 Bemers Street when it became St Peter’s Hospital for Stone.

There was considerable resistance to St Peter's and other London specialist hospitals from the general hospitals, and various attacks were published in the Lancet and BMJ. William Coulsonwas called upon to resign from St Mary’s when he accepted the position of Surgeon to St Peter's.

However, in 1873, the position of St Peter’s was suddenly and considerably strengthened by an anonymous donation of £10,000. This allowed the hospital to move to bigger premises in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden where the hospital was formally re-opened by His Royal Highness Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, on 29 June, 1882.

St Peter’s became a centre of excellence for treatment of stone disease and then, with the appointment of Sir Peter Freyer, for prostatectomy. Many of the leading British urologists have passed through St Peter’s Hospital.

In 1946, Sir Francis Fraserand Clifford Morson agreed to unite St Peter's Hospital with the neighbouring urological hospital, St Paul's in Endell Street, so that the establishment of an Institute of Urology could be considered. In 1948, under the control of the NHS, St Peter's and St Paul's Hospitals were amalgamated, with St Philip's Hospital joining the group in 1952, following which the group became known locally as "the three Ps". The Shaftesbury Hospital also joined the group in 1967.

St Peter's Hospital closed in 1992, as did the other Hospitals in the St Peter's Group, and all their services were moved to the Middlesex Hospital.